Heya! We have a black fig ( Mission?) planted in 1917, here in the Motherlode.
Tree productive but they are just pith. We dumped compost around it when we bought the land
six years ago- still pith. This year first crop actually has a sweet layer around the pith!
What is happening and does anyone want to identify this wonderful tree?
Happy to share starts, but after reading some accounts must tell you all trespassers are shot here,
even botanists! Love to know more about our friendly giant.
Whatcha need?

Hello Joy.  To get an id, several things are helpful.  Post pictures of the leaves, preferably with something in the pic for scale (like a hand holding a quarter, or anything of known size for reference).  Then post pics of the ripe fruit too... outside and sliced in half, also with size reference.  It may take time, but some folks on here are quite skilled at identification from good pics of the sort I've mentioned.  The fruit pics are the most important, but leaves helpful too.

Sounds good and would love to help out... sounds a little scary though with the bit about shooting trespassers.  I hope you don't shoot people who come to the door and introduce themselves too!

Mike 

wow don't shoot me bro

Hi, It sounds like a caprifig - a male tree that has fruits that tend to be quite dry inside and produce pollen, not traditional juicy fruits. If it is a caprifig, there is nothing you can do to make it produce edible fruits.

It would be helpful if you sliced a 'ripe' fruit and posted a picture of it here to be sure, other wise it's just a guess.

Please don't shoot the messenger. ;)

Joy,

If it is a caprifig, it could be possible to graft different varieties onto it.
With such a long lived tree, it must have an amazing root structure
I'd bet there would be people nearby who would be willing to help with this [provided they can arrive safely ;-) ]

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/Tree-grows-driedup-figs-can-I-fix-by-graftng-5750563

hold your fire just wanted to welcome you thats all.

Thank y'all! I will get the pics described today. The big tree which we shaped into a room over a table in a giant bonzai form, re- rooted where it leans on its elbow, and has a 1/2 dozen "kids" leaning and swaying downhill. Would a caprifig be able to re- produce? We LOVE this tree and have asked all the heck over the place how to encourage it to put out edible figs! We had one source say that if its an old Mission, they were pollinator specific- needed a certain kind of wasp. And as we are somewhat geographically isolated, that sounded reasonable. But there was no " buy a wasp for an unknown variety of Mission Fig" site. There are old figs all over the Gold Rush Country, brought by folk from all over the world, no doubt. An ad in the Sonora paper or through the local Master Gardener Program could get you fig- obsessed- folk some new material too!
And if it proves to be a Caprifig the idea of folk helping us graft on yummy varieties sounds crazy cool! We have planted 3 young figs downhill. A tiger something, the Violette one and a cutting from a friend. There's potential here for fig obsession!

*We had one source say that if its an old Mission, they were pollinator specific- needed a certain kind of wasp. And as we are somewhat geographically isolated, that sounded reasonable* 
Your fig could be a Mission Seedling,but not a Mission,Because a Mission cultivar,does not need a pollinator!
A Mission seedling is a plant that grows from a pollinated Mission Flower,but the pollination was done with Male caprifig pollen,so the resulting plant has genes from both sides,mother and father plant,so the new seedling needs pollination to produce ripe fruits,(if it is a female),or will never produce any edible fruits if it is a male,in itself, and is not a persistent male type.
It is complicated,but simply put,I wanted to point out that your tree is not a Mission cultivar,like it was suggested.

Well, here it is! We are excited! It would be so cool to know our tree better!
Check out the attachments!
We will send a tree shot next. Thank you so much!
And re: Mission seedling- wow, what you said! The guy said Mission because thats the most common old fig planted around here. So it could well be.
(Did all 3 photos attach?)

Oh and Hermansur,
Persistent male type? Excuse me while I practice humor restraint.
There! Do you mean fig's gender is somewhat malleable?

Ok, maybe from a fruit production standpoint it isn't ideal- but isn't this a beauty?
Now, can we address gophers? Got any fast easy solutions w/ no poisons?
( yeah, yeah, I know- shoot 'em!)

oh wow.. you can build a tree house on that and then take nap and eat fig all summer long...

Very nice tree.

Gophers: not easy. First, don't kill any snakes you might have. And encourage an owl to live on your property - they are apparently very effective. You can do a search about how to do that.

Best method besides natural preditors is trapping. 'Gophinators' are the best I've found. Stainless steel and small, easy to set, work quite well - better than macabees and box types. There are Youtube videos as well as at the gophinator site.
http://www.traplineproducts.com/gophers.html

A friend has a Dachshund that digs up and catches gophers and ground squirrels.  I think he got some encouragement from my friend and has done really wekk.

Joy in the photo of the whole tree to the right of the lantern thats above table and chairs i see branch what looks like dark ripe figs , have you recently tried those ?

Thank you. We are short dachshunds ( little pun there) but have the prerequisite dogs, cats, owls and even released our pet kingsnake there. We will look into the link to the favored gopher traps, thank you.
Anxiously awaiting ID- but can't tell if all 3 pics attached. It was a leaf and 2 fruit shots.
And sorry I'm answering en masse but dunno how to reply individually. I rarely sit still long enough to learn that( thus the nap suggestion under our tree is unlikely until I'm older- but it is a lovely image!)
Do you all have a favorite fig, while I'm awaiting ID of the Big Fig? I forgot to mention we have Peter's Honey too...

wow is that one beauty fig tree !!

A poster child tree, all right. The year we bought the land, which had been in the same family's hands multigenerationally, the main trunk crashed. So what you see are sprouts. There is a hole where the big tree stump rotted out, and I occasionally toss compost or fresh dirt. We have been "raising the ceiling" now for about 5 years so its a wonderful room ( behind the dining room you see in the pic).
But is it a fig variety or caprifig? The story goes that the grandfather planted it in 1917.

The only pic I see is the tree itself, no fruit pics. Try again?

Oh thanks Nicole! Here 'tis, then.
And you just can't imagine how grateful we will be if you can identify our fig!

Joy:Mystery solved:Your pixies show very good and clear examples of ,Caprifig fruit.
The long staminate male,flowers at the eye end,are obviously present,and can be clearly seen.
It is a Boy!.

Ha! well if you ever want to breed in the future at least you have a male Caprifig. 

Joy,

Don't be sad ! I share Herman's view and it seems you have a Caprifig in your land.
A particular variety of dark (or black) Caprifigs like the one in this picture I am attaching here,

You may even see the wasps being liberated now to pollinise other nearby figs, namely the best figs in the world (the Smyrna and Main crop San Pedro's families ).
My picture showing what I believe is a very close variety to yours was taken yesterday morning  by about 10H30 ....when  the wasps were leaving this wild fig.
The 'official' day on the Nature calendar is St. John's, which was exactly yesterday (the 24th June)

I am sure many folks would love to have , -if not your tree- just a small branch ready to give them just half a dozen of your Caprifigs.

Good luck
Francisco

I admit to sadness, Francisco. But still we love the tree, even if we can't eat the fruits. Thanks for the pics!
Hermansur, I'm glad its clear to YOU! I have just made it thru the introduction of The Fig on this site, and blasti-whathaveyous are swirling around my head!
My doted upon man reminded me that the guy we bought the land from said he once bought wasps from somewhere and it produced edible figs that year. I reminded him, he said alot of things that proved dubious. But, es posible? Like I said, there was a sweet bit around them for the first time this year...
And what about the younger trees heading downhill underneath?
No hope?
So perhaps we should look into growing Smyna? What would be the best choices to plant that would benefit from a large Caprifig?
And where DOES one get wasps ( blasti - whathaveyous) AND are they specie-specific?
And y'al are welcome to starts.
And if you let us know you are coming, you can get them yourself, and I can hook you up to a couple more ranches w/ old fig trees.

Nicole- how does one get a place to stay on a Friday on Lopez Island in July? They are full! Cute dog, by the way.

American Fig Boy- did you run into Col. Mike Peeters over there? Whadya mean, Afghanistan is a big country?